


The Stiles Files

by dearwhimsy



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Friendship, Gen, Mama Stilinski - Freeform, Panic Attack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-14
Updated: 2012-08-14
Packaged: 2017-11-12 02:54:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/485871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dearwhimsy/pseuds/dearwhimsy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles is an open book. Well, sort of.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Stiles Files

**_1\. Stiles Stilinski used to have panic attacks following his mother’s death._ **

 

After the first few months, Stiles learns how to sense a panic attack coming. He checks himself constantly, trying to catch himself breathing a little faster, waiting to see if the nausea and dizziness follow. If they do, he knows to scurry off for a hidey hole, somewhere isolated and quiet to wait it out. He gets good at it, even learns tricks to hold it bay for a while when he needs a little extra time to make his excuses. He doesn't do it often though since bottling it up tends to make it worse.

 

He gets good so he begins to get cocky and sloppy until one time, his dad doesn't buy his excuses about wanting to go read a book or whatever lies he'd spouted at the moment and finds him moments later curled up behind his bed and desperately chanting _everything's fine everything’s ok_.

 

Gentle hands wrap around his wrists and the scent of woods and break room coffee filters their way through the static of anxiety and fear. He's not sure how long they sit there, his dad's warm hands anchoring him and the soft steady stream of _Stiles Stiles oh god please Stiles_ buoying him up to air.

 

He finally opens his eyes to his Dad's lined faced, too weary and weathered for a guy still only in his thirties. There are suspicious tracks across his cheeks. He looks at Stiles and looks away again, same way he did in the waiting room when the doctor's finally announced that mom was dead.

 

He looks lost and scared, like he's crying but the tears have already run dry. Stiles is of the firm opinion that no dad, especially not his, should look like that. And yet, somehow Stiles is always the one that ends up putting that look there. On occasion. Constantly.

 

Sometimes he thinks his dad would be happier if it'd been Stiles instead of mom (the way Stiles wishes it had been instead). Or at least if Stiles wasn't around so often but he's scared and selfish so he'll stay up all night for dad to get home, two microwave meals defrosting on the counter.

 

"I'm sorry." he whispers to his Dad. Dad shakes his head, looking even sadder than before.

 

"No Stiles, no that's not..." he trails off and Stiles doesn't understand. What's he doing wrong? What is he always doing wrong? How is it that no matter how hard he tries, he always messes things up? He just wants his dad to be happy again, wants him to smile at Stiles like he used. Or had it been Mom all along that he’d been smiling at even when it was Stiles in front of him? Stiles knew that he had his mother’s eyes. Maybe that was why dad didn’t like looking at him anymore.

 

They sit in heavy silence and Stiles tries not to cry. He doesn't want to make things any worse than they already are. He holds his breath as his dad almost physically shake off the awkwardness between them and gather Stiles up in his arms. Stiles has been too big to be carried like this in years but he wraps his arms and legs around his dad anyways. Just a little longer, he'll be selfish just a little longer.

 

"Come on kiddo. You still need to blow out the candles."

 

His dad carries him down the stairs to the kitchen and sits him down in front of the cake and takes his place across from Stiles. The chair between them sits empty like a gash in the fabric of time and space.

 

He begins to sing softly while Stiles stares at the perfectly round chocolate cake with cheery swirls of frosting decorating the top. His dad finishes the song and Stiles dutifully blows out the candles thinking all the while about how he's always hated store bought cakes.

 

Five months after his mom dies, Stiles turns twelve.

 

 

**_2\. Scott McCall and Stiles Stilinski grew up together and have been close friends for years._ **

 

Scott and he are total bros. They sit next to each other at school, eat together at lunch, and in the afternoons they can be found together at one or the other’s home playing video games or just hanging. Where one can be found, the other is sure to be close by. They know pretty much everything about each other, including the sad or weird bits that no one else would ever care about. They even have matching scars from that one time they decided to be Jedi warriors.

 

Which is why it’s so weird for Stiles to remember that it actually wasn’t so long ago that he and Scott barely knew each other’s names.

 

They did in fact grow up with each other if you counted being in the same general vicinity ‘growing up together’. In all honesty, they were so far out of each other’s circles that they might as well have lived in different countries.

 

He vaguely remembers Scott during the elementary years. Scott had been the quiet kid, the one who always sat out during recess and would barely speak up even when the teachers called on him. Stiles on the other hand had been just as hyperactive and outspoken as he was now.

 

It wasn’t until after Melissa McCall spent a couple hours in a janitor’s closet at the hospital talking a sobbing little boy through his panic attack that Stiles learned (again for the dozenth time or so) and finally remembered who Scott was. After that, he kept seeing Scott out of the corner of his eye and thinking, _hey! I know that guy!_

 

Then on the first day of high school, Stiles walks into the mayhem that is the lunch room and freezes. He casts about his gaze in search of his old friends from middle school but they’re scattered everywhere and Stiles has not a clue which one of them he should seek out.

 

Out of the corner of his eye, Stiles spots Scott fortuitously with an empty seat right next to him and he makes an impulse decision. He slaps on a cheery smile and plunks himself down next to the startled Scott.

 

“Scott right?”

 

Scott nods slowly, suspicion and uncertainty clear on his face. Stiles tips an imaginary glass at the other boy and lets loose what has to be one of the cheesiest and most overdone introductions ever.

 

“It’s Stilinski, Stiles Stilinski,” he says with the best British accent he’s got.

 

Suddenly Scott grins at him, all sunshine and rainbows and shit like that.

 

“That’s from the Bond movies! Right? Imma right? I love those!” Scott’s practically bouncing in his seat, wriggling about like an overexcited puppy. Stiles is so startled by the change that he actually jerks back in his seat and almost falls off. Scott’s babbling cuts off with a guilty shamed look that has Stiles feeling just as guilty and ashamed.

 

“I-I didn’t mean- Well, that is…” Scott trails off and Stiles shakes himself off and pulls up the cheery smile again.

 

“Dude, no that’s awesome. You actually got my reference!”

 

Scott smiles back a little shy still and nods.

 

“Like I said, Bond movies are my favorite.”

 

“Me too.” Stiles smiles back. He slings an arm around Scott and with glee in his voice proclaims, “Louie, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”

 

Scott gives him an odd look.

 

“My name’s not Louie.”

 

 

**_3\. Stiles Stilinksi is in love with Lydia Martin_ **

 

The first time Stiles took notice of Lydia Martin, she’s casually and efficiently tearing apart the history teacher’s argument on why the Athenians were responsible for winning the Peloponnesian war.

 

Lydia was like Venus rising from the sea. Her vivaciousness, her smile, the way she talked and walked and did everything, always left Stiles feeling stunned and giddy. She wore her confidence and intelligence the same way she wore her Marc Jacobs dresses: like a boss.

 

Lydia, Lydia, Lydia. It tasted like hot peppers on his tongue and ever since that day in history, she was all he could talk about. After yet another replay of Lydia’s outstanding performance in class that day by Stiles over lunch, Scott finally had had enough.

 

“If you’re really that in love with her, than just ask her out already!”

 

Stiles gapes at him for a solid minute. It was probably the longest he’d ever allowed silence to reign in years. Ask Lydia out? It was logical. It was obvious. It was something that had somehow not occurred to Stiles until now.

 

“I…”

 

“Look,” Scott nudges him, “there she is. Go over there and ask her out for coffee or something. Just stop torturing my ears already.”

 

And indeed, there to their left only two tables over, Lydia Martin was sitting down with her circle of friends. Stiles gapes at her while she laughs at something the boy next to her says. The flash of white against the peach pink of her lips makes his heart pound faster and his palms get sweaty.

 

Scott elbows him and hisses at him to go for it. Stiles turns to him and Scott nods encouragingly. Stiles nods back determinedly and gets up and makes his way over to Lydia’s table. The table is loud, multiple conversations flying across the air like some insane juggling competition, but it quiets down a little when they notice him standing by Lydia awkwardly.

 

Stiles is pretty sure that the girl sitting next to Lydia is his last quarter’s biology lab partner but he can’t recall her name at the moment. She blinks at the sight of him but then smiles and gives him a wink, as if she knew why he was here. Then she turns and pokes Lydia, directing her attention to Stiles.

 

Lydia twists around in her seat to smile at Stiles. For long seconds, they simply stare into each others' eyes like some movie cliche. Then Lydia looks away, for just a moment, her attention briefly caught by something to the side, and when she looks back, Stiles is already walking away. He sits heavily back down in his seat and beside him, Scott is practically having a conniption fit.

 

“What the hell was that!? Why in the world did you just walk away like that? You’ve probably definitely killed your chances now. Do you know how rude that was?”

 

Stiles picks up his fork and starts poking at the food on his plate.

 

“Dude, seriously, what’s your problem? You’ll never know if you don’t try. Aren’t you the one who keeps telling me to Carpe Days?”

 

“It’s Carpe Diem.” Stiles mutters into his mashed potatoes.

 

Stiles can almost hear Scott rolling his eyes.

 

“What _ever_. All I’m saying is that you buddy, need to hurry back over and apologize for being an idiot and offer to make it up to her.”

 

Stiles looks back towards Lydia’s table and finds her and the possibly former lab partner girl staring at him. Lydia looks a little disappointed, a little confused, and just maybe a little hurt. She tilts her head at him, considering something, and then turns away, obviously dismissing him from her mind. Beside her, the other girl who had winked at him earlier, frowns at him, quizzical and angry before doing the same.

 

“Stiles? Stiiiiiillllessss?”

 

Scott waves a hand in front of him. Stiles turns to him, takes a breath, and begins to chatter about the upcoming book report that he’s been working on. Scott frowns and tries to drag the conversation back to the topic of Lydia but Stiles overrides him with years of experience of being the chatterbox.

 

Stiles doesn’t try to ask Lydia out again after that. That’s not to say his crush goes away or that he stops waxing poetic about the way Lydia’s hair looks that day or how she totally gave the best presentation of anyone on Hamlet in English. He just pines after her from afar, makes her into this unattainable dream though he knows she’s not. Scott gives up trying to convince him to see the light for the most part but makes it obvious that he thinks Stiles is being an idiot about it all.

 

Even his dad comments on it once after just a little too much to drink, tossing out the Tennyson quote while Stiles tugs the bottle of Jack Daniels out of his hand and tries not to look at the wedding ring he still wears.  


End file.
